Bills, Bills, and More Bills

This week we were asked to look for a piece of legislation that had been proposed in the past two weeks and try to track it back to its origins to try to find out who is funding and benefiting from it.

I took my search to www.govtrack.us and found a bill that was referred to the committee on the 2nd of March. S. 510 is "A bill to protect a woman’s right and ability to determine whether and when to bear a child or end a pregnancy by limiting restrictions on the provision of abortion services."

The bill is sponsored by Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat Senator from Connecticut, as well as 40 other cosponsors. Of these 40 cosponsors, 38 are also Democrats, and the other two are Independents.

Since the bill itself is still quite new, there is not much information on the bill just yet when you look on govtrack.us or on the congress website. However, upon digging around on Senator Blumenthal's website, I found that he also introduced the Women's Health Protection Act of 2013. I looked up the bill on the congress website and verified that he was in fact the one to introduce and sponsor that bill as well.

While on Senator Blumenthal's website, I did also find an article in regards to this new bill that he is introducing and sponsoring. The Political leaders in favor of this bill are calling it "The Women's Health Protection Act." The article says that the bill has 40 cosponsors, as I mentioned earlier, in the Senate and another 102 in the House.

The article also says this about the bill:

"This legislation would prohibit laws that impose burdensome requirements on access to reproductive health services such as requiring doctors to perform tests and procedures that doctors have deemed unnecessary or preventing doctors from prescribing and dispensing medication as is medically appropriate. Other examples of laws that make it more difficult for a woman to access an abortion include: restrictions on medical training for future abortion providers, requirements concerning the physical layout of clinics where abortions are performed, and forced waiting periods for patients."

From my findings, I would say that this bill is attempting to benefit the health and well-being of women all over this country. Without more information on the bill itself, it is hard to say who exactly is funding it. As more information becomes available, we'll see exactly what this bill entails.

Honest News??

This week we were asked to look at the American News Media in order to try to figure out if we believe that the news media still fails to challenge the claims made by our political leaders or if they are actually attempting to return to their original purpose and challenge those claims.

My personal thoughts are that it is actually both.  There are still many sources of news that just regurgitate the same information over and over, but there are also a few sources that actually try to call attention to and challenge the claims made by our political leaders.

To me, this isn't an all or nothing kind of answer.

Shepard Smith, a Fox News anchor, has come under fire recently for calling out President Trump after a recent news conference.  Many of Trump's supporters are referring to Smith as "the new Megyn Kelly", boycotting his time slot, and even requesting that Smith be fired.

Below is the clip from the article of Shepard Smith calling out President Trump.

Shepard Smith calls out President Trump

On the other hand, there is an article from the Boston Herald.  This article, which sits on the side of the President, is trying to call out other news sources as "fake news" much like the current President does.  And while the article does mention that some other sources just keep repeating the same news over and over (Image 1 below), I have a hard time agreeing with a "news source" that uses the very mature tactic of name-calling (Image 2 below) while attempting to discredit another.  (Seriously people, are we in Third Grade or something?)

Image 1:

Image 2:

These two sources, for me, both show that some news media are trying to challenge the political leaders, while others clearly aren't.

The Overwhelming Presence of Gun Violence in Video Games

I have never been one to actually play overly violent video games, especially ones that use guns as the primary weapons. Growing up I did play a little bit of one of the Grand Theft Auto games with my brother, but I grew out of that game fairly quickly.

So while I am not very familiar with these types of video games, the first ones that stand out when trying to think of any examples of gun violence in games that was probably encouraged by an emphasis on masculinity and militarism are games like Call of Duty and any of the Grand Theft Auto games. These two games scream masculinity when I think of them. With GTA, I remember some scenes where they very negatively portrayed women, as well as made fun of the main character in order to get "him" to act in more manly ways.

However, Call of Duty definitely ties into the militarism aspect as well as the masculinity aspect. Even the title for Call Of Duty: Heroes game reeks of masculity.  Masculinity is often times associated with the need for men to be "heroic" so having a game like this with the word "Heroes" directly in the title just shows how much of a male dominated segment of the industry this is.

I do believe that the marketing of weapons through video games does indeed warrant concern. Many people play these games and, just as it was said in Joystick Warriors, there is an increasing number of children who play these games now and can EASILY tell you the difference between the different types and calibers of guns.  And that right there is just incredibly frightening. This type of information should not be so easily available to children, in my opinion. Especially, when many of them will not ever be educated on the dangers of gun ownership and proper safety training and gun handling.

"Happy Violence" as Seen in American Horror Story

Happy Violence, to me, is the violence portrayed in television and movies that will go without any sort of consequence to the protagonist who is the one acting violently.  The audiences will sympathize with the protagonist and feel that their acts of violence are justified in order to satisfy the needs of the protagonist and the plot to the story. What makes it "happy" violence as opposed to just plain violence is the fact that when the protagonist has performed the violent act, you are left feeling happy and/or satisfied with the results because it was necessary for the "greater good."  It is so common place in today's television and movies, that people are desensitized to it and are often cheering on the protagonist.

"The Death of Sister Mary Eunice"- American Horror Story: Asylum

The first example of happy violence that comes to mind is from the show American Horror Story. The clip above shows the death of Sister Mary Eunice at the hands of the Monsignor Timothy Howard. By this time in the season, the real Sister Mary Eunice has been possessed and the Mary Sister Eunice we see for most of the season has murdered some of the patients at Briarcliff, as well as manipulated a lot of people to do some of her dirty work. After the Monsignor has thrown her over the railing, you can see that his hands are bandaged up, as shown below.

This is because previously one of the patients had nailed him to the cross in the church. So after seeing how the Monsignor has been treated recently you start to feel sorry for him. And when Sister Mary Eunice attacks him, and he fights back and throws her over the railing, you feel both relief that she is gone and her reign of terror has come to an end, as well as some happiness for him.  Which, due to the reasons I stated above, makes this a good example of "happy violence."

Who's Your (Media) Daddy?

Many people don't realize that majority of the media is owned by six large corporations.  These conglomerates are GE (General Electric), NewsCorp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS.  Lots of people think that some of the major players are NBC, FOX, and ABC.  However, each one of those companies is owned by one of the companies listed as one of the Big 6.  NBC is owned by GE, FOX is owned by NewsCorp, and ABC is owned by Disney.

One of the shows that I watch almost religiously is called Reign. Reign airs on The CW.  After doing a little digging I found that The CW is owned 50/50 by both CBS and Warner Bros, and Warner Bros is owned by Time Warner.  For a program owned by two of the companies in the list of the Big 6, I suspect that it has to follow specific rules and regulations set by both companies, in order for an episode to be deemed appropriate to be aired.  If the show deliberately goes against something that either CBS or Warner Bros wants, then they run the risk of being cancelled.  This in turn is an effective way to censor the show from talking about, showing, or alluding to specific topics that The CW's parent companies may not want them to talk about, show, or hint at.

While Reign, sadly, is in fact gearing up for it final season, it makes me wonder what really prompted the cancellation of this show.  Was it a decline in viewership, or did they upset one of their parent companies in some way?

Using Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" to Understand Media and Media Influence

My rendering of the cave

Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" tells us of a conversation held between Socrates and Glaucon, in which Socrates tells a story that poses many questions in order to get Glaucon to visualize the image of a cave and the people within it.  Repeatedly Socrates presents Glaucon with the image and a scenario, and then asks for feedback as to what Glaucon believes the people in the story will do.  The main idea behind the "Allegory" is that no matter what someone tells you is the truth, what is more important is what you perceive to be the truth.

Many people can look at the same image/object and have different understandings of what that image/object really is.  You can choose to take someone else's explanation of that image/object at face value and accept it as your "truth", but that does not necessarily make it the correct "truth" for everyone.  We can easily apply this to the concept of the media and the media's influence.  Say the media creates an advertisement or a music video.  They do this with a specific intent in mind.  That is their truth of the image that they are creating.  However, two different people could look at the same advertisement or music video and get completely different opinions of the image, which could also be completely different from what the media had intended for the ad or music video when they created it.

You cannot force someone to see or understand something the same way that you do.  The other person(s) may see it the same or not, but that knowledge cannot be forcibly given to the other party.  This idea was present in the "Allegory" when Socrates said that if the one person who was able to go out into the world, and learn about everything, went back into the cave and tried to tell everyone that they were wrong and to explain to them what they were seeing was something other than what they believed, that they would end up killing him."Allegory"